02-24-04 02:50
No 490707
Now bees this sounds very stupid but has to be asked,
swim was asking another what formic acid smelt like, and was told "haven’t you ever smelt the air after you squish an ant?" now swim thought this very puzzling coz whenever he goes on ant stomping rampages (usually shitty at the many screw-ups swim has made) he is using his feet, which are a fair distance from his nose....
Being a bit curious swim caught one and squashed it with my finger then smelt it, gross swim knows but it did smell a bit like formic... swim was told its mostly formic ants get you with when they bite. That right?
That night swim was dreaming of a (very limited) formic source for very small scale performic acid production... (This is sounds like the tryptophan from turkey and acetic from vinegar threads) couldn’t one get a SHIT LOAD of ants by using a hand vacuum and an unsuspecting ant colony? wack them in some methanol to kill them in a nice way (for all the animal lovers out there) and distill?
Now the formic may not be released till they are squashed so using a magnetic stirrer on full ball and heat will surely do the job by softening then churning them up?
Swim has utase and nothing on this has come up so some thoughts would be good.
(Wonderful Personality)
02-24-04 04:30
No 490725
Actually formic acid was the first time isolated by the distillation of red ants - a few hundred years ago.
You need lots of ants - this way isnt very effective.
I suggest taking a shortcut and to isolate MDA/MDMA by the distillation of ravers. This should be about the same effective and leads directly to the desired products.
Make a writeup and post it.
(Hive Bee)
02-24-04 04:33
No 490726
leave the ants alone.
Besides it being an archaic way of going about getting what you need, you have to contend with separating your microgram quantities of formic acid from ant nucleic acids, lipids, and whatever else there is in ant blood mixed with squished ant. And you can bet that there is a fair amount of formates in that as the formic acid reacts with everything it can when you squish the ant.
UTFSE. Make it from ethanol and Ca(ClO)2.
See Post 92035 (CHEM GUY: "Re: Home Made Chloroform and Iodoform", Chemicals & Equipment). -Probably worth reading that whole thread.
e( i*pi)+1=0
(Stranger)
02-24-04 04:37
No 490727
i think formic was first discovered by someone noticing corrosion of metal above ant nests...i am usually in favor of diy precursors, so- ive seen some huge surface mounds of spruce-needle nests in the pacific nw. you could jump on one with a hefty bag and separate them from the needles when they swarm out! they look like piles of mulch but if you kick one-thousands and thousands of pissed off ants.
most people stick to oxalic/glycerol or the hydrolysis/reduction/byproduct of more useful cpds, so a modern experiment is definitely called for. i heartily recommend you task yourself to this unsavory process and give us your report.
(Stranger)
02-24-04 05:43
No 490740
isolate MDA/MDMA by the distillation of ravers
lol, yeh Organikum wouldnt be a bad idea, pretty high conc. round swim, but what would be the best method? The containing species round swim have high conc of mdma in the brain and not much else so collecting a few heads wouldnt be too bad
praeseodymium, ants suck ass, swim had the idea coz they are everywhere in swims house at the moment... cheaper than a pest man!
gsus, yeh humane or not swims gunna get into it and see what happens, even if there is a micro amount in them and swim get shit all precursor, fuck it, twas fun killin the little bastards! swim was thinking to use the big ass bull ants around here, bout inch long nasty ones, sting like all hell when they bite ie more formic? So say 0.05g formic in each? about ~5000 ants in one nest? 250g formic = 205.9mL not too bad for some sadistic afternoons fun!
Swim will see what happens when he gets to it, perhaps a report with some gory pictures is in order
(Hive Bee)
02-24-04 06:09
No 490745
in ant language.
Ants speak chemistry pretty well, and are used to acting on chemical hints- some strategic placement of both a small amount of honey and insect repellant will usually give the entire colony the message about where they should go and where they shouldn't- especially (if you are impatient and don't care if it keeps you from enlightenment even longer) if you decide to punctuate your initial statement with flyspray - though usually sweeping the fuckers outside combined with the other two works well enough.
Ants are persistent little buggers but they aren't stupid. You just have to speak to them in their language.
My take is it seems a bit dumb to resort to chemical warfare with an organism which routinely uses, and is therefore particularly in tune with, chemical messaging. They won't all suddenly leave immediately- they don't like to give up. But usually after 2 days they stop trying to defeat you and have had enough of your insect repellant to take the hint. The colony will remember this and won't be anywhere near as difficult to talk to in future
I have had your problem ApprenticeCook, with particularly persevering ants which did not seem to care after two consecutive says of heavy losses until I employed this technique. It seems really silly but given the range of insect repellants and their efficacy these days - eg diethyl toluamide, di-n-propyl isocinchomeronate) they are just crying out to be used.
Some people will just spray the ants without a second thought... and the ants never learn much about why. A chemical which says GO AWAY is fairly clear to ants.
e( i*pi)+1=0
(Stranger)
02-24-04 06:57
No 490751
Yeh praeseodymium, your right they do have the (sometimes embarrassing) edge on us.
What about oxidation of easy OTC methanol by permanganate? Normally this would not stop at the carboxylic acid (formic) but continue oxidation to CO2 + crap = waste of time, but doing this under a hot basic condition would form the carboxylic salt, which could then be acidified to the acid and the corresponding salt:
Methanol is slowly added to hot KMnO4 / NaOH solution to form sodium formate, HCl gas is then pumped into the solution to form NaCl and formic acid? Correct?
Animal friendly (although not as fun!) and should be a great yield, same method can be used to make acetic acid from ethanol.
The method you linked too works too, either way would give around the same yield and ease of method correct?
(Hive Bee)
02-24-04 07:57
No 490755
manganese dioxide and HCl
Methanol is slowly added to hot KMnO4 / NaOH solution to form sodium formate, HCl gas is then pumped into the solution to form NaCl and formic acid?
and KCl, which is ok,
and MnO2, so there's the chance of
MnO2 + 4 HCl ==> Cl2 + MnCl2 + 2 H2O happening, so then you could get chlorine reacting with stuff... I'm not sure how cleanly that would work.
Probably any halogenated products will just distill off but you could get chloroformic acid in there.
Anyone else?
e( i*pi)+1=0
(Stranger)
02-24-04 09:57
No 490762
that would be a problem..... didnt think of that... what about using a differnt acid? phosphoric maybe would not have such an effect? just a thought on the fly...
(Hive Bee)
02-26-04 02:54
No 491128
Did you look at the procedure on Rhodium's site for making formic acid (and allyl alcohol). It works well in my experience (at least for formic), and is very OTC...
This is in no way an endorsement of Birch reduction.
(Newbee)
03-08-04 17:49
No 493765
Yes, have been looking at the method on rhodiums site but wanting to find alternate routes was the name of this game.
Just to give us options, and have a bit of fun.What about this one, to solve acidification problems, basify MeOH with some KOH, slowly drop in conc permangenate solution, MnO2 is formed, a white precipitate, potassium formate is very soluble in water so it will remain in solution. However!, MnO2 is insoluble in water, filter the shit out!
wash filter paper with some water and then gas the liquid with HCl gasser were so used to.... Distill out the formic acid, bp 100.8 so water will come over too, but you should get a nice solution of formic acid.